But today, the homepage was completely revamped as shown below:

As you can see, the top stories are now arranged by category, making the jump from topic to topic simpler. Also displayed is the number of blogs that are discussing the same topic, and you’ll be able to view them all if you wish.

If you are interested in tracking how hot the current topic is, Google Blogsearch also displays the topic trend in graphical form, and this is accessible by clicking on the all blogs link.

Nice, isn’t it?

I strongly recommend Firefox users to apply this update either thru the automated notification from Mozilla or manually thru the check for updates tabs.

For a complete listing of the changes and updates applied to this version, head over to Mozilla’s Firefox Release Notes page.

It is a good thing that I still remember my Hotmail password even though I haven’t used it for over 8months, but to my surprise, upon getting inside my Hotmail inbox,  all I got was a welcome message from ”Windows Live Hotmail Services”. Yes, all of my previous emails are gone and I’m sure I haven’t deleted them. It seems that my account experienced some sort of a “reset”, giving the impression that my account was just created today, even though I had it for over 10years! 

 Am I missing on something? What’s up Microsoft?!

Jeremy Mayes Adwords account was hacked recently and he said that he has been very careful about his account, using strong passwords and logging only from secure locations, so it is still not clear whether such hacks come in the form of a vulnerability in Google Adwords API, or from vulnerabilities in the browser used, from spywares or whatever. 

Whatever the case may be, Adwords publishers should put extra care on their accounts, making sure that all programs installed in the computer they are using are from trustworthy source, and avoid installing software whose identities are unknown or have been altered. Legitimate programs that have been cracked usually makes Windows alert you upon installation. Avoid these at all cost. You never know what’s in there, even when your antivirus says it’s clean.

I would recommend that Google Adsense and Adwords should have a different set of login and password information from Gmail. It logical to assume that most will open their Gmail account in public computers but not check their Adwords or Adsense account there, right?

So please Google, do something about this!

Sandisk, together with major labels has announced a new storage format for music albums. Targeted for users of mobile phones with miniSD card slots in them, SlotMusic will have a capacity of 1Gigabyte, and will contain DRM-free MP3s with up to 320kbps of quality.

These Sandisk SlotMusic cards will be placed next to music CDs in popular stores like WalMart. On launch day, you will have 29 albums to choose from, with prices ranging from $7 to $10 a piece.

I normally get excited whenever I hear news about a new, upcoming format, but this time, I’m a bit skeptical about this move by Sandisk. I can still remember previous attempts to dethrone the audio CD with formats such as the mini-disc but it failed.

Also, people nowadays would like to get their music online and save them using their existing media. And lastly, how many people actually listen to full-albums on their cellphones?

Today, Microsoft will reveal what they dubbed as a device that says goodbye to the laser technology. Since the annoucement was made over Microsoft’s Hardware website, it is quite evident that the product will involve something that influences our interaction with the computer. 

Upon hearing such announcement, most were excited to know what it is, however,  the suspense seems to have vanished when a Engadget reader spotted a mouse over at Amazon Germany. This device is rumored to utilize a blue-LED coupled with a wide-angle lens (diffuser perhaps?) and has the same logo from the teaser embossed on its front. Such scheme will enable this new mouse to work over surfaces that common optical mouse wouldn’t work, such as glass and uneven surfaces.

Another big event today would be the Let’s Rock event by Apple in Yerba Buena Center For The Art Theatre, San Francisco. What would you think would be announced at the event? New Ipod models? Price cut on the Iphone perhaps? I’m sure you are one with me in awaiting the results of these events. I just hope there will be new models of Macbooks that will be announced. Just wishing though.

Now here’s a video explaining how it was possibly done, and I strongly believe such method were used in the video above.

We all know that cellphones emit microwaves but they are so low that we can actually place them near our ears without them cooking our brains out. So relax my friends, we now know that the cellphone popcorn video was made for just for entertainment.

Let’s give credit to the Wordpress core team for their quick response in dealing with v2.6.1 bugs.

This is why I love Wordpress.

Upon reading what Google chrome would offer, I was one of those eagerly waiting to try it out; constantly searching and refreshing what seemed to be the first available download link for it. About an hour ago, Google has made the download link for Google Chrome live, and you could also see it advertised on Google homepage (not in country specific Google sites though, just on it’s main homepage). Linux and Mac users would have to wait for a while since the installer is only for Windows.

Hitting on the download link, you’ll get a small 474kb installer file that when executed, would launch another program that seems to be a download manager for Chrome. As expected, download was slow (took me about 45minutes) since I am sure a lot of people are also getting it, but once finished, installation was a breeze. 

As a sysadmin, I’m always on the lookout for the changes that a software installation makes on a local PC, and I definitely hate programs that doesn’t have a way to be uninstalled. Fortunately, Google Chrome advertises itself in the add/remove portion of the Windows control panel, making it possible for you to remove it once you don’t like it.

Now that Google Chrome is ready on my Vista PC, let’s try it out. Google Chrome prompted me to import bookmarks from IE, and after doing that, this was the first screen I saw:

Using Google Chrome is like using IE in full-screen mode. and by that said, this means you’ll never see any File, Edit, View, etc on the menu bar. You’ll have the impression that you have a greater desktop space. Adding a new tab is accomplished by hitting a + sign near the last open tab, although ctrl-t also works well. I have a small problem though… where is the Print and print preview button?

Bitting The Bullet: Executing Google Chrome Malware Test

Earlier this evening, I was checking out what the fuzz was about Antivirus XP 2008. Further reading told me that this is a fake http scan program that tells you that your PC is infected and you need to buy a license from them to remove the virus. It turned out that Antirus XP 2008 is the virus itself, and it easily and silently installs itself to unprotected browsers. I have Symantec Internet Security 2008 installed and it immediately blocked the said virus.

Now, going to the same malware site, but this time, using Google Chrome as my browser. If you want to test it, type the keywords “Antivirus XP 2008 test” on Google and let’s see what happens next. Be warned though; if your antivirus cannot trap it, you’ll definitely get infected while on IE.

These are the test results:

In IE, a fake windows codec install request appeared and without doing anything, it attempts auto-install. Without a antivirus on my PC, I am sure to be infected by now.
In Google Chrome, the same fake codec request appeared, but it doesn’t auto-install but the script was persistent. Closing the dialog box just puts it into an endless loop of several dialog boxes. The only way to get out was to end Chrome.exe process all together, but at least, I am safe from the said malware.

There you have it, my Google Chrome first impressions. I’ll continually update this article as we put Google Chrome to further testing, and a sure fire way to test Google Chrome is to use it to write this blog. Nice!!

Update: Anyone got to make Google Chrome to work with Java-based FTP? I can’t FTP to my blog using Google Chrome! It said that there is no available plugin to make it work, even when I re-installed Java on my PC.